Pirelli concerned about intensive granulation

Pirelli’s tire experts assumed that the teams would have to deal with intensive rubber granulation in Monza, and these predictions are coming true. Almost no one ran hard tires (C3) – the only exception was Yuki Tsunoda, and the rest preferred to save all hard compounds for the time being, which will probably come in handy for the racers on Sunday.

The teams mainly ran Medium and Soft rubber compounds, and it is clear that C4 was used for long laps, and C5 for simulating qualifying.

Mario IsolaPirelli Racing CEO: “We saw a lot of interesting things on Friday. Before the weekend it was unclear what the condition of the completely renewed track surface would be, which can be considered the most important innovation of this Italian Grand Prix.

Judging from what we have seen today, we can say that the predictions have generally been confirmed and that the grip level is very high. However, this factor, combined with the low aerodynamic load required by the Monza circuit, could increase the granulation effect observed in both rubber compounds.

It is clear that it is still difficult to judge the behaviour of hard tyres, as only one racer used such tyres and had only completed 17 laps. However, it does give a clear indication of the direction the teams can take with their tyres for the rest of the weekend.

At this circuit, the two-pitstop tactic, given the length of the pitlane and the time needed to change tyres, inevitably leads to unnecessary loss of time. The most likely scenario is therefore that the teams will try to rely on Hard and Medium tyre compounds to cover the distance with a single pitstop.

At the same time, everyone keeps the second set of hard tyres in reserve in case of very intense granulation during the race. Therefore, it will be necessary to switch to plan B.

The question regarding granulation therefore remains: from tomorrow morning it will be necessary to monitor further changes in the condition of the track. The more laps Formula 1 and other categories of cars drive, the greater the layer of waste rubber on the track surface will be.

Another important factor will be the high temperature. It was very hot today, at one point the asphalt heated up to 54 degrees – in theory the race is in full swing at this time on Sunday. Such temperatures can only increase the breakdown.

We see that the speeds increased compared to last year and continued to increase as the sessions progressed – this was particularly noticeable in the first practice, but in the second such dynamics were not so evident. It will be interesting to see what will happen in this regard on Saturday, starting from the third practice.”